In the Philippines

David Cable was in Chicago when Mrs. Cable received word from her sister, once Kate Coleman, that she soon would reach San Francisco with her husband, bound for the Philippines. Kate was the wife of a West Pointer who had achieved the rank of colonel in the volunteers, by virtue of political necessity. His regiment had been ordered to the islands, and she was accompanying him with their daughter, a girl of sixteen.

Colonel Harbin had seen pleasant service at the Eastern posts where his wife had attained a certain kind of social distinction in the army fast set. She was not especially enamoured of the prospect ahead of her in the Philippines; but the new colonel was a strict disciplinarian on and off the field. He expected to be a brigadier-general if fortune and favouritism supported him long enough. Mrs. Harbin could never be anything more than a private in the ranks, so far as his estimation of distinction was concerned. His daughter Ethel had, by means of no uncertain favouritism, advanced a few points ahead of her mother, and might have ranked as sergeant in the family corps.

Mrs. Harbin played cards, drank highballs, flirted with the younger officers, got talked about with pleasing emphasis, and was as happy as any subordinate could be. They had not even thought of such a thing as divorce, and the whole army wondered and expressed disgust. The army's appetite for scandal is surpassed only by its bravery in war. It is even hinted that the latter is welcomed as a loophole for the former. War brings peace.